Amazon Fresh is a triumph for the culture of instant gratification
Masuma RahimThe tech giant’s new same-day service offers convenience – and further proof of the obsolescence of values such as patience, hard work and self control
Bit of an odd thing to complain about though:
Traditionally, being able to delay gratification has been attributed to individual self-control, but more recent research suggests that it’s not quite that simple. In one study, participants were split into two groups. Children in the first group were given small boxes of crayons and promised larger boxes, which failed to materialise. Following that, they were given a sticker and told that a bigger selection was on its way. Again, the stickers never turned up. In the second group, the children were given the same promises, but they received the crayons and stickers as expected. Unsurprisingly, in the experimental part of the study, the children in the second group were more able to demonstrate impulse control in favour of a bigger reward later. It seems, therefore, that the ability to delay gratification is, at least in childhood, less a pure function of intrinsic personality, and more associated with beliefs about the world and how reliable promises of later rewards are likely to be.
So if it turns up when they say it will there’s no problem then?
Ok, let’s randomly delay or even cancel payments of their salary, invoices etc. delayed gratification, etc.
As articles go this is utterly pisspoor. Why should you wait two days for a rucksack you buy on line but you can have it instantly if you walk into a shop? Is he arguing that all purchases should have a built in delay? Perhaps a government department could manage that? OffSales?
FFS it’s food delivery. It’s what Tesco and Ocado have been doing for years.
If I want instant gratification I’ll go down to the newsagent and buy a KitKat. Having to wait hours for Amazon is some curious new definition of the word “instant”.
It seems, therefore, that the ability to delay gratification is, at least in childhood, less a pure function of intrinsic personality, and more associated with beliefs about the world and how reliable promises of later rewards are likely to be.
This is simply the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. Which followed up earlier work done by Walter Mischel in Trinidad. What he found was that Indo-Caribbean children could delay gratification. Afro-Caribbean children had a lot more problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment#Method
Although the racial factor was strong, what he was probably measuring was the impact of divorce. I assume the author quoted in the OT knows this:
and more associated with beliefs about the world and how reliable promises of later rewards are likely to be.
So if your parents promise before God and mankind that they will love each other until death do them part, and then don’t, they may well grow up with a certain beliefs about the world and how reliable promises are likely to be.
So divorce causes fecklessness.
Instead of blaming Amazon, this person should be calling for an end to No Fault Divorce. Of course Right Thinkful People love divorce and hate Amazon so that ain’t going to happen.
“FFS it’s food delivery. It’s what Tesco and Ocado have been doing for years.”
But this is Amazon and therefore the intentions are pure evil.
We discussed this in the pub last night as one of my neighbours has a business that does work for Amazon and he reckons their big motivation at the moment is to keep Google out of their market.
His business is quite interesting, well for me as I don’t realise that this is how Amazon worked. He gave as an example a company that sells weighing scales in the US only.
Amazon approaches the company to find out why they don’t sell in, say, Europe. Usually the the answer is all the hassle of setting up companies, VAT registration and taxes etc. Amazon then introduces the company to my neighbour (or one of many other similar businesses) and he then does all the registration etc with an SLA of 7 days to be selling in to Europe. My neighbour then takes on all the fulfilment process as well and takes “ownership” of the relationship whilst Amazon moves on to the next business.
Strikes me as a classic win win.
What makes me vomit about the fuckers who write this shit is their gross hypocrisy.
You just know that any delay in the waiter serving Masuma her celery quiche would result in the normal Graun writer’s “Do you know who I am?” rant.
Indoor plumbing is a triumph for the culture of instant gratification.
What kind of restaurants does this guy visit?
You’d like a cheeseburger for dinner,sir? That’ll be ready a week on Thursday.
Very good I shall return then.
FFS it’s food not blow, at least not unless Amazon are venturing out into some exciting new areas.
We’re not supposed to enjoy ourselves or have nice things.
There is a start up in London that is offering to deliver alcohol to your door in the middle of the night – along with condoms and cigarettes I believe.
Now that is what I can instant gratification. Oh joy to be alive!
I expect that the government will ban them within weeks of opening.
This woman’s article is so stupid, she’s even getting a kicking in the Grauniad comments.